Wednesday, September 4, 2013

It's still pretty warm, but the air is getting a little crispy around the edges. Last night was a marvelous evening for doing my errands on my bicycle. (I never realized my hometown was s'damn hilly.) I braved sections of the road that I hadn't covered before and saw three students! Two of them were playing in the street and didn't notice me, and one is apparently the daughter of the owners of the carniceria/taqueria where I tried to get cilantro (her father gave me the one pathetic remaining bunch for free.) When you teach every single second and third grader in town, you musn't ever dress skankily or be drunk in public. I even feel bad riding around without a helmet; I'm setting such a bad example!

At the taqueria, I fell for coconut juice again. I always get it confused with coconut water, which actually tastes good and would be great after a bike ride, unlike coconut juice which is slimy and too sweet. So with an un-resealable 18 oz can of coconut juice to use up, I made this cake.

Note: I was really appalled today when I had some of the very sweet chocolate milk served in the cafeteria at school and realized that sugar is the second ingredient. So I didn't use sugar. But you could. In that case mix it in with the dry, not the wet, obviously.

Vegan/Lenten Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Preheat oven to 350.

Make 2 flax "eggs" with 2 tablespoons flax meal and 3 tablespoons liquid (I used the damn coconut juice.) Do this first so it can coagulate a bit.

In the bottom of a 9x13 pan, spread around:
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil
20 oz can of crushed pineapple (DRAINED; reserve liquid)
1-2 tablespoons ground ginger (I just grated it right over the pineapple)

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add:
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/3 cup liquid (mine was leftover pineapple juice and most of the coconut juice)
1 tsp vanilla
the flax eggs
~1 cup sweetener (I used honey and molasses)